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I’m a Mac…I’m a PC

Everyone who is anyone, even my grandparents, know about the ongoing war for market share by both the Mac and PC platforms; they may not know why it matters, but they know there is some sort of holy war going on.

I don’t believe in it. Mac may be better if you’re a designer or a Rails developer. It is really up to the user and the purpose. A PC may be better for C++ application development or gaming. It’s not really up to a marketing push to decide which is actually better.

The one thing that Apple does have that no PC manufacturer has is absolute control over the hardware that functions with their operating system. It’s much, much simpler to maintain an Operating System that is meant to only work on a small pool of Apple designed hardware.

Through doing this I’m sure it has helped Apple win over users who had given up on PCs due to the BSOD because of hardware or software failures.

In the age of virtualization technologies it is becoming even easier for Apple to gain share among more technical users simply because of applications like bootcamp, wine, and vmware. A new Mac user can run basically any application they need to in a virtual machine, or even a transparent bottle so it appears that an application built for Windows or Linux will appear to operate natively on OSX.

The PC is still the leader simply because of the cost to consumers. You can pick up a low end PC for less than $300 at your local big-box megalomart. Customers have to make the conscious decision to switch to Apple and the rise in iPod and iPhone owners has created a huge customer base from which users will continually be slammed by the Apple brand, creating awareness of their full range of products and eventually drawing some of them headlong into the Apple fanboy hall of fame.

In the end, it’s just a computer no matter which side of the argument you’re on.

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Joomla! Template

It takes me a long time to design a website and be satisfied with it. So long that I rarely do it anymore. There are so many apt designers out there who distribute free and purchasable templates at more than reasonable prices, it seems almost ludicrous to spend the time to make one myself.

Of Course you lose the originality of your site and run the risk of looking like someone else’s site, but I’d rather have a tight design than one that I haven’t gotten around to making it really great.

With programming and development you can cut corners and make it work and still get the same result, but with design you just can’t do that. If you don’t design thoroughly it will be noticed and could negatively impact your readership and visitors.

I’ve been going over themes at YOOThemese and Rockethemes lately and I’m extremely impressed with the level of design that I’m seeing. To design something similar would take a week solid without breaks in my world, and then you have all the value added extensions and special styles…

It makes a great case for using templates.

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CRM On a Budget

I’m currently seeking a fairly basic CRM and lead management system that I will be able to integrate with Joomla! either through an API or as a module. I’ll be considering any and all options, but there seems to be very few high-quality open-source options out there.

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Less is More

Our society has quickly shifted towards a ‘getting things done’ sort of mentality and this attitude can be spotted in nearly every aspect of modern society. From fast food to tivo, ipods to amazon.com, smart phones to smart cars, we all tend to ‘cut the fat’ in order to achieve our goals. In the process, we end up ‘satisficing‘: just enough to satisfy, but probably not the best outcome possible.

The best takes more time and energy (resources) to achieve than what is just adequate.

According to Wired, we’re seeing a whole revolution: ‘The Good Enough Revolution‘

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Twitter Has No Value For Teens

Well, I would say “Obviously!”. Twitter is meant for microblogging – tiny tidbits that are just enough to say something, while teetering on the verge of nothing at all.

Recent research by myYearBook on 10,000 teens 13-17 show that teens aren’t as actively engaged by twitter as with sites like Facebook and Myspace. I can do everything on Facebook that I can do with Twitter…and then some.

Read More [via BizReport]

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“This is my business”

I’ve been watching ‘Shark Tank’ via hulu over the past week or so. It’s a simple show where entrepreneurs present their business to potential investors and do their best to convince them that they are worthy of their investment. Of those presenting, I see a running theme among those that fail to receive any sort of funding.

Overvaluation

Most of the people seeking investment think their businesses are inevitable cash cows, when in reality they are worth maybe 10% of what they suggest. They are the ones who have unrealistic expectations and they end up walking away with absolutely nothing.

If I’ve learned one thing over the course of my short life it is to be realistic in not only your expectations of yourself, but of everything else in your life. It’s sad when Utopian expectations end up with these entrepreneurs blowing their big chance.